IV

THE SCHOLARS1

importance of Stephen Langton and Robert
JL Grosseteste as learned prelates who helped to shape
the history of their time has been recognized by their own
contemporaries and by succeeding historians. But they
have overshadowed their colleagues. It has not been
pointed out that among these were their pupils or con-
temporaries in the schools of Paris or Oxford, sometimes
their friends or men with whom they had been associated in
diocesan work. These connexions constitute much of the
interest of studying the magistri as bishops, and, therefore,
in commenting upon their careers the facts which suggest
such connexions will be emphasized. '*

When Stephen Langton came to England in July 1213,
among the churchmen most ready to receive him would be
M. Richard le Poore, Dean of Salisbury since 1198, the
bishop who, after unsuccessful elections to Winchester
and Durham in 1205 and 1213, sat in three successive
sees : Chichester, Salisbury, and Durham. For these pre-
ferments he seems neither to have solicited preferment nor
canvassed support ; on the contrary it is probable that in
many different circles he was regarded as an obvious
candidate for episcopal honours,* In the first place he was
the brother of the Bishop of Salisbury, Herbert le Poore,
and a member of a rich and distinguished administrative
family ; nor did he forsake its traditions : during the.
Minority, although he had no official connexion with the
1 See Appendix C, Pt. III.
2 The Durham monks in 1214 summarize in formal terms his eminent suita-
bility as their bishop-elect * Eligimus Ricardum . . . virum integrae famae quern
de canonicis nihil credimus obviare institutis, in temporalibus bene providum et
in spiritualibus multum devotum, moribus et litteratura praeclarum quern credimus
et scire et velle ecclesiam npstram deperditam restaurare, ac restaurata diligentius
custodire* (Rot. Chartarum, p. 208),
3843-3 £